Lac Seul First Nation

Lac Seul First Nation (LSFN) is a community of three distinct settlements a) Frenchman’s
Head, b) Kejick Bay, and c) Whitefish Bay. The current on-reserve population is about
860 with a total registered population of 3,372 (as of October 2015).
Our people speak Ojibway, Oji-Cree and English. Our communities are found on the
southeast shores of Lac Seul Lake and extends southward to the north shores of Lost
Lake.
This includes 66,248 acres of land. LSFN is about 40 kilometres from the town of Sioux
Lookout, while Kejick Bay and Whitefish Bay are about 65 kilometres.
While inhabited for thousands of years by our ancestors, the earliest reference in
historical journals was found in that of John Long, a fur trader in 1791. He reported that
our ancestors called this territory “Obijikokaang” meaning Strait of the White Pines.
Subsequently, the famous Hudson’s Bay Company set up the first all-year trading
post at Lac Seul in 1803 and a more permanent post one in 1815. The area was then
travelled and formally mapped by Edward Umpfreville, an explorer and fur trader in the
late 1800’s.
Our ancestors, along with other Saulteaux and Ojibway tribes in Northwestern Ontario
signed Treaty #3 in 1873 at a place called Northwest Angle, not far from Fort Frances.
By signing this treaty, our forefathers surrendered their vast traditional territories to the
official representative of the Canadian government. In return, our forefathers received
land called “reserves” as well as “treaty rights” or “treaty status.”
The treaty was signed by Chief John Cromarty, which makes our reserve the oldest
reserve in the Sioux Lookout district. By 1912, there were about 45 homes along the
shoreline of what are now referred to as Kejick Bay and Whitefish Bay.